The Second Sword

Returning to the area southwest of Paris after years of being on the road, three days later the hero was forced to set out again. In contrast to previous explorations of the world, this time he has an irrefutable goal: »›This is the face of an avenger!‹ I said to myself when I looked in the mirror the morning I set off on my journey.« Revenge? For what?

For the mother denounced in a newspaper article as a supporter of her country's annexation to Germany. Against whom? A journalist, the author of those untruthful allegations, who lives within a day's drive, out in the hills around Paris. However, the experiences of all those travellers Peter Handke has had set off from home are also confirmed here: »I hadn't come up with a plan. It had to happen. On the other hand: It did, in fact, exist, the plan. But it wasn’t my own.«

And so the revenge campaign becomes a celebration thanks to a conscious decision on the part of the narrator, Peter Handke: Only that which has existed in real life is allowed access to the written story. And vice versa: A story only becomes real if it is worth telling.

»It’s not The Second Sword that is made of steel but the narration itself. A pious legend? Maybe. But a victory of literature.« Lothar Müller, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»This book is Handke’s perfidious revenge on his critics, that’s the way one wants to and should read it today – and at the same time it is a feast for his admirers. A double-edged sword.« Philipp Haibach, Die literarische Welt

»The book masterfully entangles the elevated and the farcical, real anger with parody, apodictic speech with particles of everyday language. The May Story is a spring-like easy read but is yet a ›serious game‹ in the style of the old masters.« Thomas E. Schmidt, DIE ZEIT

»[…] he maintains the suspense in The Second Sword until the end. Is the narrator going to take revenge on the journalist? It’s a literary game – not just with what happens in the book but also with the knowledge of his own reputation.« Sebastian Hammelehle, Der Spiegel

»The seemingly militant title The Second Sword is entirely taken up in literature […] and Handke’s epic aligns itself with Homer’s epics with dream-like ease. […] In the echo chamber of the classic epics the boundary between narration and religion has been lifted for Handke. This must not be understood as a theological conviction but as an expression of all that literature encompasses.« Helmut Böttiger, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

»Handke‘s May Story, a literarily perfect, astonishingly irritating text of self-exploration [...]« Ulrich Kühn, NDR Kultur

»The May Story is teeming with references to so much of what Handke has written over the course of his long career […] Handke toys with his work, often light-footed, then profound when he is dealing with big themes […].« Mladen Gladic, der Freitag

»Handke casually plays all the cards he has hidden up his sleeve. Where the story first seems like it is strung together almost incidentally, it grows into a complex structure. And in between Handke winks at us. His hero is never unlikeable, because he is never murderous. […] This keeps the story of revenge in a state of ease that counteracts it and in a cheerful balance.« Michael Wurmitzer, der Standard

»Peter Handke‘s new book shows him as a giant of the art of narration. […] [He creates] a kind of prose that is not subject to an expiration date any time soon and should still captivate readers in 100 years‘ time.« Ulf Heise, MDR

»How everything comes to a conclusion in the end, finds each other as though a matter of course, moves the reader. The others are beyond help anyway. Are they going to keep silent at least? It stands to reason that they won’t.« Lothar Struck, Glanz&Elend

»The Second Sword fits into [Peter Handke’s] narrative cosmos like a splendidly shimmering mosaic piece.« Werner Krause, Kleine Zeitung